Body recovered from Kyrenia ferry wreckage identified as 12-year-old girl

One of the two bodies recovered on Wednesday from the seas surrounding the wreckage of a ferry which sank off the coast of Kyrenia in August was on Thursday identified as 12-year-old Miray Bicer. Bicer, who hails from the town of Reyhanli, which is located in Turkey’s Hatay province, between the Turkish Mediterranean coastal city of Iskenderun and Syria’s second city, Aleppo, had been on board the ferry alongside her five-year-old brother Asaf, her mother Ayten, and her father Hayri. Asaf Bicer’s body was recovered from the wreckage last week, and his funeral was held in Reyhanli last Thursday. Ayten Bicer and Hayri Bicer both survived the accident. On the day after the ferry sank, Ayten Bicer recounted the ordeal, saying that her daughter was “saying, ‘don’t let go’, and I didn’t let go of my daughter. Related Articles • Another body found near Kyrenia ferry wreckage, one remains missing • Funeral held for five-year-old who died in Kyrenia ferry disaster • Kyrenia ferry search operation continuing ‘inch by inch’, Sucuoglu says “I swear, I didn’t let her go,” she said, tears streaming down her face, before explaining that a suitcase fell on top of her, forcing her daughter from her grasp. She said that she had grabbed her daughter’s foot, but that her shoes, coated in engine oil from the overturned boat, slipped through her hands. His father, meanwhile, explained that everything happened suddenly on the day of the accident. “We couldn’t intervene. We lost our children. We made a lot of effort, but we couldn’t save our children. Two of my children are gone. One of my sons is alive. Two of my children are gone. Two of my three children are gone. We left them. We are leaving them on this island as we go,” he said. Ayten Bicer later said that “it was slipping like oil” and that “there was diesel, our feet were slippery”. “It was slippery everywhere. It was like oil. She slipped out of my hand. Mehmet Asaf held on to his father here,” she said, showing the collar of her T-shirt – “saying, ‘Baba’”, she added. 27 confirmed dead, one remains missing A total of 27 people are confirmed to have died as a result of the accident, while one passenger, Suleyman Erdogan, remains unaccounted for. The ferry capsized shortly after leaving the new port of Kyrenia en route to the Turkish port of Tasucu at a little after midday on August 30, with 259 passengers and eight crew members on board. Following the disaster, a total of nine people – the boat’s captain, now named as Mustafa Oz, seven members of his crew, and one representative of its operating company, Filo Denizcilik – were arrested, with all nine remaining in custody. They most recently appeared in court last Friday, while it was said at a previous hearing that a crack had appeared on the side of the boat almost two months before it sank 30 and that, according to photographs recovered from the first mate’s mobile phone, the repairs were carried out on June 17. Questions remain over ship’s certificate, captain’s licence Those repairs were undertaken by Oz and the boat’s crew, with the court hearing that they were carried out at a port in Cyprus, but that the Turkish Cypriot authorities were not informed, despite Oz and Filo Denizcilik being obliged to inform them under such circumstances. The repairs were carried out just 15 days after Istanbul-based ship classification firm Turk Loydu had certified the boat as seaworthy. Turkish Cypriot ‘transport minister’ Faiz Sucuoglu had suggested that the ferry had been involved in an unreported “minor accident” prior to its sinking, and asked, “what fault does Turk Loydu have here?”. However, a police representative told the court on Friday on this matter that “no such evidence has been found”. Previously, it had been said in court that Oz had bought his Honduran captain’s licence for $3,500. A police representative said Oz had said under questioning that he had initially obtained a licence in Turkey, but that it had become invalid after he did not work as a boat captain for ten years.